The state lawmaker who represents Florence said guards in three towers at the maximum-security prison fired every round of lethal and nonlethal ammunition at their disposal Sunday to quell the melee that erupted when a white-supremacist prison gang taunted African-American inmates on Adolf Hitler’s birthday.
Two inmates who died were shot by guards, said state Rep. Buffie McFadyen, D-Pueblo West.
McFadyen said she had been told by corrections officers that the riot at the United States Penitentiary in Florence erupted at about 12:30 p.m. Sunday when the white supremacists began yelling slurs toward African-Americans and a fight ensued.
The two inmates who were killed were shot after refusing to follow repeated orders from correctional officers and were fired upon only as a last resort, said McFadyen.
The spokesperson for the Florence prison, Leann LaRiva, confirmed in a release today that the guards did fire on inmates, and she identified the two inmates killed as Brian Scott Kubik and Phillip Lee Hooker.
Kubik, 40, was serving a 15-year sentence after being convicted in federal court in Oregon as an ex-felon in possession of a firearm. Hooker, 41, was serving a 25-year sentence for armed robbery on charges out of Milwaukee. Kubik was white, and Hooker was black.
LaRiva said the riot, involving 150 to 200 inmates, was racially motivated. She said inmates were armed with homemade weapons, including rocks, sharpened metal, plastic and wood.
McFadyen said that the corrections officers repeatedly fired what are called “no man” rounds — warning shots into the yard away from human targets. The intent is to scare and warn, not to hit a target, she said.
LaRiva said the guards verbally warned the inmates to settle down, then fired “tactical distraction rounds” before using lethal force.
“The quick and effective response by staff prevented further loss of life,” she said in the new release.
Jeff Dorschner, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Denver, said the FBI’s Denver-based “evidence-response team” is currently going through the recreation yard where the riot erupted, collecting evidence.
He said the FBI is working with U.S. Bureau of Prisons investigators to determine what happened.
LaRiva said the prison is still on lockdown.
In a statement released last night, LaRiva said five inmates were taken to local hospitals for treatment. There was no further word on their condition.
McFadyen said that at the height of the riot, the total federal prison campus was on lockdown, with officers from the other three prisons on the four-prison campus being called into quell the riot.
The other three prisons include the U.S. Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility, or “Supermax”; the medium security Federal Correctional Institution; and a minimum security camp.
McFadyen has repeatedly warned that the U.S. Penitentiary, where the riot occurred, was about to blow.
Early last year, Ken Shatto, the guard union leader, and McFadyen held a news conference warning of the danger.
Shatto said that in February 2007, tower guards were forced to fire lethal and nonlethal rounds to stop inmates from killing one another.
“Today, I’m trying to head off full-blown riots,” Shatto said then. “That’s where I think we are headed.”
McFadyen said today that although Supermax receives more publicity, the U.S. penitentiary is extremely dangerous because of the “domestic gangs” there.
She said the gangs, such as the white-supremacist gang, are “very organized” and that many of their members are “doing life without any opportunity for parole.”
Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com
